We are Delicate Creatures.

The above photos are from the photo album of a German SS officer who worked at Auschwitz. Yes, even Nazis made photo albums. They were taken at a vacation resort very close to Auschwitz where these Nazis “worked” when they weren’t recreating or playing the accordion. It’s chilling. If I look closely I can see familiar faces in the group. I can see many of my friends and family.

Have you ever wondered how a Nazi was created? It's actually not too much different than baking a cake. You simply have to acquire the ingredients and follow the recipe and preheat the oven. Have you ever thought about what kind of citizens the Nazi war criminals would have been had Hitler not risen to power? For a tip take a look in the mirror.

These men and women who carried out the heinous deeds of the Third Reich were normal, decent people before Hitler, through nationalism and propaganda and hatred, rendered them into ruthless and savage killers. Not long before 1937 being German carried with it no particular hatred of the Jews. No, these men and women were cultivated and groomed for hatred and sociopathy. It didn't happen overnight. This "cake" took several years to bake. Before Hitler these men and women were ordinary German citizens. They were among the most cultured and refined people in all the world. They were pharmacists and tailors and teachers, and scientists, and architects and farmers and violinists and bankers. They were no different than you and me. They were exactly the same. In fact, German society since the end of the Nazi regime has shown no propensity for hatred and genocide and torture. Like any great locksmith Hitler was able to cunningly decipher the combination to unlock and unleash an entire country against the world. The same can be said of the Japanese who exhibited unprovoked and ruthless behavior during WWII and were astoundingly animalistic in their treatment of the Chinese during the "Rape of Nanking" in 1937. They beheaded thousands of innocent Chinese women and children without mercy. Now, the Japanese have no pugnacity whatsoever. They are magnanimous, perceived as docile and humble. What happened over a generation?

We live on a precarious slope. We are delicate creatures. We are like fine Swiss clocks with many coordinated and moving parts. If the mechanism is disrupted we, like the clock, lose our ability to tell time. Most of us are capable of almost anything under the select circumstances. The exact same German men and women who now live calmly and with dignity in Germany had parents or grandparents who were totally complicit with the objectives of Hitler. They were accomplices. Hitler was counting on them: the men (and) the women, even the Catholic Church.

We, as Americans, aren't special! We are not immune to carrying out hatred and genocide on behalf of our "group", race, religion, leader, or country, nor can we be vaccinated against it. We have a 250 year history of unrepentant slavery. As Americans we have done very little to address and correct that sadistic legacy. Two men whose faces are carved into Mt. Rushmore were slave owners. Do you really think if Jefferson and Washington were alive today that they would be slave owners? Owning slaves was status quo normal; no one blinked.

Hatred and cruelty can be caught just like a virus. You have to wear a “mask” when indicated. The virus can catch almost anyone who isn’t protected. It can turn a quiet country doctor like Josef Mengele into the Nazi's notorious "Angel of Death"; a man who committed unspeakable atrocities and experiments on children without a speck of remorse. I have no doubt that without the directives of Hitler he would have been a law abiding, "normal" German citizen living a normal life. He didn't torture animals or commit crimes against German citizens before or after the war. No, the mechanism of his clock was disrupted by the orchestration of a single man who rose to power. Hitler brought intense hate to Germany. He brought a black fog that blocked the sun. Dr. Mengele, and virtually all of the rest of Germany, could no longer “tell time”.

Imagine if I told you that in a five year period virtually all of your friends and relatives would don uniforms and commit unspeakable crimes against a certain group of Americans or, at the very least, they would stand by and watch as it was happening without saying anything. Imagine your uncle turning into a Nazi in 5 years?, or your brother?, your best friend?, your doctor?, your soccer coach? That is exactly what happened between 1932 and 1937 when Jews were forced to sell their businesses in Germany and they were forbidden from working in any government office in Germany. By the end of 1937 they were being placed in what we now call "concentration camps". It was insidious. It hit the country the way carbon minoxide "hits" it's victims. The gas is odorless and colorless and before you know it you are unconscious and lifeless, unable to think critically or independently. Every year until Germany was defeated in 1945 it got worse. The atrocities and the tactics became more abhorrent and easier to perform. The citizens of Germany continued to attend the Opera and go to picnics and wear Lederhosen and send their kids to piano lessons while Jews were placed in ovens just a few miles away. They didn’t lose any sleep. Nationally sponsored genocide was completely normalized. From 1932-1945 it was as normal as baseball is to Americans. They would have taken "selfies" had their been cell phones at the time. Even Christmas was famously celebrated in 1941 with all the SS officers. There was even a Christmas tree, and a visit from St. Nick. They were smiling in the photos. Everything was normal. People shopped and tended their gardens. In fact, when you are demonstrating power and control over others, happiness, for many, is heightened. It raises your self esteem in a cheap and disgraceful way. Hitler knew all that. His appeal was making Germany great again. That speaks to your pride, your nationalism and ethnicity, your sense of entitlement, and ultimately it led to 80 million deaths.

And, was Hitler really more evil than any garden variety psychopath who feels nothing for others? True, the scale of his atrocities are unmatched. He had a colossal world plan and he was single minded but is there really much of a difference between someone who can extinguish 3 lives and dump them in a river and then go to a birthday party and...Hitler? Is there much of a difference between someone who shows complete indifference to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people during a pandemic—lives that could have been saved. Yes, the scale of Hitler’s destruction was unbelievable but a dead heart is a dead heart. Feeling nothing for the suffering of others is something all true psychopaths have in common. Hitler’s unique skill and goals were to disable the conscience of an entire nation. He unplugged it like we do a socket on the wall.

I would suggest that our potential to act (or inact) mercilessly is much more common than we might be comfortable entertaining. We can never take a vacation from the exercise of developing compassion and empathy for others. It will come quite naturally to some but for others it must be cultivated and nurtured, like building muscles.

We are delicate creatures. Our inability to exhibit compassion and empathy will render us more capable of becoming a “Nazi” under the right pressures and circumstances; “Nazi’s” like the ones in the photos; the ones laughing and playing the accordion.

That is how it happens.

"Every day a little death
In the parlor, in the bed
In the curtains, in the silver
In the butter, in the bread

Every day a little sting
In the heart and in the head
Every move and every breath
And you hardly feel a thing
Brings a perfect little death"

-Stephen Sondheim from "A Little Night Music"